"The Golden Spiders" (2-hour Pilot)

Most would-be Nero Wolfe series seem to start off with the classic "The Doorbell Rang," but this one's pilot was a 2-hour adaptation of "The Golden Spiders," which was originally aired as a TV movie on March 5, 2000. The series followed almost a year later, starting April 22, 2001.

Compared to a number of other series (e.g., Star Trek and Gilligan's Island), there were very few changes between the pilot and the ensuing series. The only ones I'm aware of offhand are the roles of Saul Panzer and Lon Cohen being recast, and that's only one-and-a-half changes, because Saul Rubinek played (logically enough) Saul Panzer in the pilot but replaced Gerry Quigley as Lon Cohen in the series, at which point Conrad Dunn stepped in as Saul Panzer. (I did think those changes were a bit of an improvement.) All the other continuing characters were played by the same actors throughout.